


simple little machines

by mercutioes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mentall Illness, Minor Injuries, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutioes/pseuds/mercutioes
Summary: "Hey, now," Claude replies, soft like he's soothing a skittish horse, "I wouldn't just leave you."  He takes a gamble, slowly reaching forward to tuck a lock of grimy hair behind Dimitri's left ear — in the periphery of his good eye, of course.  He's rewarded with a shiver, the touch-starved prince leaning in like a moth to flame.This may be easier than he thought.In the ruins of Garreg Mach, Claude finds the key to winning his war, so long as he can put the prince back together.For DimiClaude Week Day 5: fragile/touch
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 139





	simple little machines

**Author's Note:**

> my running title for this was "the one where claude is a bastard man" and that's exactly what it remains. please heed the content warnings for emotional manipulation and mental illness.

It’s almost comical, how reluctant they are to give him the report of Dimitri’s state. The wheels in his mind go spinning almost immediately, faster than he can gather Hilda and Lorenz and a battalion and mount horses for Garreg Mach. _Single-minded_ , they said. _Feral_. He’d been ready to cut the scouting party down to a man before they'd managed to convince him they weren’t Imperial.

Claude remembers, of course, the brutality in those final days — even before then, as he turns over his memories of the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion in his mind, picturing Dimitri’s victory at any cost, his expression on the field, behind his lance. He can’t have been the only one to take Fraldarius at his word — to think perhaps Felix was callous and cruel but sometimes even cruel men were correct about certain things.

Garreg Mach is a crumbling wreckage. Here, the stalls where the merchants once sold bandages and bowstrings, here the empty stables, here the half-demolished room where the house leaders had met weekly. Of course, Claude had hedged his bets during those meetings, currying favor and good will with Dimitri and Edelgard both — sweet words and smiles, hands on shoulders. One more receptive than the other, though Claude guesses that this had more to do with Edelgard's taste for women than his own lack of charm.

They find him in the ruins of the cathedral, snow dusting the ragged furs that make his shoulders look massive. Claude immediately wants to dunk him in a bath, clothes and all. Instead, he dismounts and approaches — alone and unarmed, to the consternation of everyone including Hilda and Lorenz.

"Dimitri," he says softly. Not _Your Highness,_ not any of the academy nicknames. For this to work, it has to be his name. It has to be Claude who says it.

His lance — _not Areadbhar_ , Claude notes distantly — is at Claude's neck in seconds, a thin line stinging where the blade cuts in. He raises his hands, plastering on a disarming smile. There's an off chance this doesn't work and Dimitri slices his throat clean open, but Claude's considered the probabilities, and he thinks it's unlikely.

Dimitri breathes slowly, like it's a great effort, and lowers his weapon.

"Claude," he says, and Goddess above his voice has gotten lower. His hair covers much of his face, but what he can see is crumpled in a strange mix of distrust and open longing.

"Hey, now," Claude replies, soft like he's soothing a skittish horse, "I wouldn't just leave you." He takes a gamble, slowly reaching forward to tuck a lock of grimy hair behind Dimitri's left ear — in the periphery of his good eye, of course. He's rewarded with a shiver, the touch-starved prince leaning in like a moth to flame.

This may be easier than he thought.

♚♙♟♔

The rest of the Golden Deer assemble over the next few weeks, trickling in from across the Alliance. Raphael and Ignatz come through with mercenary battalions and supplies, while Lysithea arrives with half of Ordelia's standing forces. Though House Edmund has no soldiers, Marianne brings support in the form of hired stonemasons. Leonie has her own mercenary band, rowdy but competent, equally helpful as soldiers and hunters providing wild game to feed their growing numbers. Goneril sends as many soldiers as it is willing to contribute, per the resources (and generosity) of the respective families. Gloucester is silent.

Claude sets Hilda as his running commander, knowing that for all her complaining, she'll best know how to keep the peace between the ragtag crew of factions they've assembled here. The admin work he leaves to Lorenz, both as a practicality (no one manages resources quite like him) and as a neat piece of ego stroking at a valuable moment.

For his part, well. He makes strategic appearances amongst the soldiers and remaining clergy and writes letters and tears through Seteth and Rhea's old offices for all the confiscated materials and forbidden library books from over the years. He scours the Holy Mausoleum late at night — luckily, there are only four or five Knights of Seiros present, and it's nothing to dose the guard with a sleeping draught and slip inside. He welcomes a delegation of soldiers led by Cyril of all people, defected from the Empire with the loss of the Archbishop.

He takes care of Dimitri.

It goes like this: he keeps the lost king on a tight schedule that's meant to seem perfectly natural, a leash with enough slack that he'll never notice he's constrained. Claude holds large, grand war meetings of little substance, convening with his inner council behind closed doors to go over the information of consequence. Someone in his network accompanies Dimitri to the cathedral or the training grounds, makes sure he eats and drinks.

Sometimes, Claude himself will find a free afternoon to train, encouraging Dimitri to leave his furs and armor by the wayside and face him weaponless. It's not how either of them usually fight, but it's easy to convince him given they use such varied weapons.

It's also an excuse to make contact, to catch Dimitri's wrist mid-swing, to dance behind him and let his palm brush just so against his pale arm, to allow Dimitri to pin him to the ground and savor the press of their bodies. The Dimitri of four years ago might have blushed or stammered or panicked and pushed himself away — this one only lingers in the touch, starved for it.

Starved for _Claude's_ touch. No one else dares touch him, even now, and that's only partly unintentional. Dimitri has few friends here, but Claude's schedule leaves no room to make more, and certainly none that will leave a lingering hand on the bare skin of his shoulder, who will see the prince without armor. 

Hilda asks him if he feels bad over dinner and battle plans one night. Claude can't lie to her, hasn't been able to lie to her since the second month of school.

"No," he says. "I don't."

♚♙♟♔

A month in, he slips into Dimitri's room after dinner with watered wine and an open secret disguised as a careful confidence.

"Mit'ka," he says, taking a seat in the dusty desk chair across from the bed where Dimitri sits cross-legged, curled defensively into himself. The nickname — unfamiliar to him but familiar to the king — rolls off his tongue, popping like sparks from a fire, a warmth painstakingly considered. "You know I trust you, right?"

Dimitri looks at him like an animal looks at a treat that might be yanked away at any moment by a capricious master. Claude presses on.

"The politicians here are always at my throat, but you…" Claude pours wine, doesn't yet offer it. "You know what you want, and you're honest about it. I feel like I could tell you anything and it'd be okay."

"Claude." Dimitri's voice is worn from disuse.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

It's difficult to tell how much Dimitri actually absorbs as Claude recounts the story of his parentage, his childhood, the throne owed to him far east of Fódlan's borders. His eye stays fixed on Claude but it vacillates between sharp and hazy in equal measure. Claude's careful not to loose any truly important state secrets, just the harmless ones he can spare, wrapped up in a show of earnest vulnerability he's cultivated since he was small.

When he's done, he takes a long breath and laughs and drains his cup of wine. He's long since migrated to sit next to the prince on his bed, almost close enough to touch. 

"Thank you, Mit'ka," he says, as if a heavy burden has been lifted. "It feels good to tell someone."

Dimitri blinks slowly, ungloved hand coming up to rest on Claude's arm.

"Thank you for — for confiding in me," he says slowly, more words in a row than he's yet managed all evening. "I'm not sure I'm worthy."

"Nonsense," Claude replies with a smile, leaning back on his hands. "I can't think of anyone else I'd rather confide in." A pause. "I hope you know it goes both ways."

Dimitri's eyebrows knit in consternation. Claude sighs, leans in closer and tucks a lock of hair behind Dimitri's ear, just like their first reunion. He still shivers.

"You can tell me anything, Mit'ka."

It's all part of the larger plan, but something in Claude genuinely _does_ mean what he says. He's not heartless, after all — Dimitri is his friend, he simply needs to be molded back into a useful shape.

"There's nothing to tell," the prince grits out, gaze shifting to the floor, going unfocused again. Claude needs his eye clear and his head level.

"That's not true, hey," Claude soothes, cupping his cheek, feeling the prickle of three day old stubble. "Dimitri, _look at me."_

He doesn't mean to take that tone of voice, the one he reserves for his battalions, but Dimitri's eye snaps up, suddenly lucid. His pale, chapped lips part slightly. _Well._

"It doesn't have to be now," Claude presses on, "but one of these days, I want to hear about it. Everything."

"Okay." Dimitri's voice is so soft that it's near inaudible, but their faces are so close that Claude can practically taste his breath. It would be easy to kiss him, so pleasurable for the both of them, but—

It's too soon.

Claude stands and ruffles Dimitri's hair to break the tension, managing to make the prince chuckle. The sound makes something small and fragile hurt in Claude's chest, but he ignores it.

"Get some rest, Mit'ka," he says, gathering the wine and cups. He gets only a quiet noise of affirmation in response, but it's enough as Claude closes the door behind him.

♚♙♟♔

Three days later, Claude hears screaming from the training grounds. Any other day, any other hour, he'd ignore it under the assumption that there'd been an accident and the healers would be dealing with it.

It's Dimitri's scheduled training hour, however, and he's only meant to train _alone_.

Claude takes off at a sprint, leaving the clerk he was talking to waiting with a clipboard and a hanging sentence, single-mindedly focused on the possibilities. Worst cases: Dimitri’s dead, or he’s killed someone vital to their operation. Second worst cases: Dimitri’s gravely injured, or he’s gravely injured someone politically significant that would make Claude look _very_ bad for letting the mad prince swing a lance around.

When he arrives, he breathes a sigh of relief to see it’s only the third worst case: Leonie’s managed to come away with a wound on her shoulder that looks worse than it probably is, given she’s still on her feet. Raphael’s holding Dimitri back by the shoulders with a great amount of effort. Marianne’s gotten between them, so small compared to the others but holding her own as she tries to calm the situation.

Dimitri looks… _wild_ is the only word, lost in some other place and time, struggling to get at Leonie with his fists now that he’s lost his lance. His eye is hazy and unseeing.

“Dimitri,” Claude calls, trying to keep his voice low and even around the panic lingering in his throat. No response. Leonie throws him a furious look — _deal with him, he’s yours._ Claude approaches slowly, careful not to startle him further. He strips off his gloves, leaving them on the ground. “Dimitri, you’re at the monastery.”

A bare hand on his shoulder, another on his cheek. Raphael stares at Claude, still struggling to keep Dimitri in check. Claude ignores it.

“Dimitri, Mit’ka, look at me,” Claude tries, the edge in his voice hardening to steel. His eye darts up, meets Claude’s own, but there’s no recognition there. At the very least, he’s stopped struggling.

“Can we get him to his room?” Claude asks quietly, addressing the others now, Raphael and the few Knights still around.

“I think so,” Raphael says, “but shouldn’t we—”

“Dimitri, we’re going back to your room so you can rest.” Claude brushes Dimitri’s hair out of his eyes, half-expecting him to snap at his fingers like a dog, grateful when he doesn’t. “Marianne is going to come with us.”

Dimitri huffs, shakes his shoulders to break Raphael’s hold. Claude signals to let him go, following as Dimitri stalks out of the training grounds and towards his quarters. He manages to ignore the stare Marianne gives him the whole way there, his palms itching where they cradled Dimitri’s bare skin.

♚♙♟♔

Felix arrives four months in, throwing Claude’s careful planning to disarray. Ragged and sharper than ever, he demands to see Dimitri, threatening to skewer Claude on his sword if they won’t let him in. Claude considers making him a prisoner of war — he hasn’t declared allegiance to anyone at this stage so he’s technically still a lord of the Kingdom, Claude has the right — but it would undermine the tentative alliance between Faerghus and Leicester and the whole point of keeping Dimitri in the first place.

“I’ll let you see him,” Claude says, stepping close so he can speak softly, “but I have to be there.” They’re in the corridor outside of Dimitri’s rooms. Felix takes an instinctive step back, as if he hasn't been near another human being in years. It reminds Claude of Dimitri, wariness and distrust writ in every line of his body.

“No,” Felix grits out, “I need him alone.”

“How do I know you’re not going to kill him the moment you get in there?” Claude counters, folding his arms across his chest. There’s something swelling in his gut, something protective that he tries to write off as pure political strategy but that remains unfortunately emotional — the thought of someone hurting Dimitri makes him burn.

Felix’s eyes narrow. “I’m not going to —”

“I remember how you talked about him —”

 _“I wouldn’t touch him, von Reigan,”_ Felix snarls, fisting a hand in Claude’s cravat, pulling him close enough that he can feel Felix’s hot breath on his cheek, can see the amber of his irises pulled tight around the pupil.

“I believe you,” Claude murmurs, holding up his hands in a sort of surrender, “but he’s too valuable to risk. I would think you’d understand that.”

Felix drops his hold with a huff, stepping back and casting his withering stare to the ground.

“Fine.”

As soon as the door opens, Felix rushes to Dimitri in the most effusive show of emotion Claude’s ever seen from him. He presses their foreheads together. Despite his earlier words, it takes everything in Claude not to leave and give them their moment.

“I thought you were _dead_ , Dima,” Felix grits out. “Everyone else, they’re… they didn’t _care_ , they told me not to care, I —”

“Felix,” Dimitri says, ragged, hands clenched by his sides.

“Shit, boar, your _eye_ , what did they _do_ to you?”

“Felix, stop —”

“I swear, we’ll kill them, I’ll —”

 _“Felix!”_ Dimitri shoves him so hard that Felix goes stumbling, crashing into a bookshelf and sending tomes falling around him in a flutter of leather and paper. Claude watches, muscles tense, ready to intervene but more interested in the outcome if he lets things play out.

“What the hell?”

“You left me,” Dimitri breathes, near-growls. “You didn’t come back.”

“I searched for you!” Felix snarls, “For years, I— they told me you were dead, everyone thought you were gone!”

“Claude found me.”

“Claude found…” Felix echoes, like he can’t figure out why it matters, why Claude’s name is even passing his lips. Then, desperate: “I _searched_ for you.”

Dimitri refuses to meet his eye.

“Claude is going to help me take her head,” he mutters.

Felix makes a wounded noise. He turns on Claude, hands clenched into fists so hard that Claude almost expects to see blood running out from his palms.

“You’re letting this happen?” he demands, voice tight with something that could be fury or tears or both. Claude schools his gaze to steadiness and neutrality.

“Dimitri can make his own decisions,” he replies carefully, eyes flicking over to the king hunched over in his chair, eye trained on the floor.

“Like hell he can,” Felix spits. “You never saw him —”

“Get out.”

They’re both startled by Dimitri’s voice, low and rasping like a sword rusted over a century of rain. The lines of Felix’s body shift and tear like a cornered animal, like he doesn’t know whether to run or cut everything in the room to little pieces.

“Dimitri —”

 _“Get out.”_ Dimitri stands, glaring, every inch the beast Felix had painted him during their school days.

Without another word, Felix turns and leaves.

They do not see him again. 

♚♙♟♔

A skirmish:

Claude takes down seven soldiers with arrows through their necks. Another four mages go down with shafts embedded in their hearts, no armor but their robes.

Far more, he pins down for Hilda and Raphael and Dimitri to slaughter with their axes and lances and fists. He soars above them, no part of the battlefield unknown to him, no part unseen.

Whether that is a blessing or a curse, Claude will never be able to decide.

For now, he processes the flickers of movement below as a series of gambles and priorities: Lorenz will not die if Claude allows him to face the soldiers approaching him. Ignatz has Leonie at his side, he will survive. Marianne is at the back, she is in no current danger. His other soldiers take lower priority, each a different level of expendable below his generals.

Another arrow lodges in the neck of a broad-shouldered woman who looks too much like his mother.

Another arrow. Another.

Why doesn’t he ever run out?

Garreg Mach stands. The mountain does not crumble.

♚♙♟♔

Every passing day, the possibility of marching on Enbarr becomes less of a dream and more of a tactical reality.

Claude gives Dimitri more time on the training grounds, feeding him judicious crumbs of information about their movements on the Empire. He can tell that Dimitri’s sleeping less, but not so little that Claude needs to get involved. Dimitri does not attend the larger strategy meetings anymore, instead electing — under Claude’s advisement — to spend it cutting down straw dummies or sparring against their hardiest knights.

The capture of Merceus is _huge_ for them, boosts morale like nothing has in the past year. Merceus means food stores and barracks with space enough for all their soldiers. It means enough for a carefully-planned party — Claude had been dubious, but Lorenz and Hilda had ambushed him with the idea and had all but forced his approval (and aren’t _they_ a terrifying team, he’ll have to interrogate Hilda about what’s going on _there_ ).

The night of the party, Dimitri stays in his assigned room in the winding hallways of the Fort. Claude, dressed down for the celebration and holding two glasses full of wine, finds him there late in the night.

“Not in a party mood?” he asks, bumping the door closed with his hip, taking in the dim room lit only by the moon and a couple lone candles.

Dimitri makes a low, apathetic noise. “Nothing to celebrate.”

“Come on, Mit’ka,” Claude coaxes, taking a seat on the bed next to Dimitri, leaning back against the wall. He offers a glass. “We took the stubborn old general — isn’t that enough for a party?”

Dimitri gives him a look, but takes the glass. “I suppose.” He takes a sip. “Not for me.”

Claude sighs. “What would be enough for you?” he asks, as though he doesn’t know the answer. Dimitri’s face darkens.

“I want her —”

“I know, you want her head,” Claude says quickly, “but what about _after?”_

Dimitri’s face twists in confusion, as if the concept of a time after Edelgard has never crossed his mind. As if he’d never considered an outcome where he doesn’t perish in Enbarr along with the Emperor he despises. Claude feels a sudden wash of something warm and protective in his gut — maybe it’s the wine or the celebration, maybe it’s the limited time they have left, but everything in him yearns to convince Dimitri that his life isn’t so expendable.

“I…”

“We’re going to win, Mit’ka,” Claude presses, setting aside his glass and turning to face Dimitri fully. “If you could have something for yourself, what would it be?”

Dimitri’s lips are chapped and rough but it doesn’t matter because they’re pressed to his, the taste of wine heady between them. Dimitri yields almost as soon as Claude kisses back, his mouth going slack, following Claude’s lead as their lips mold together, drawing back and meeting again in heated shapes.

“Dimitri,” he murmurs, and the mad king buries his face in Claude’s shoulder and breathes, in and out, in and out, in and out.

♚♙♟♔

They are weeks away from Enbarr, close enough to have set marching orders. Everyone knows this, and the memory of wine and celebration are as mist compared to the tense anticipation of a battle that may kill them all.

Claude is stretched thin in a way nothing can fix, not delegation or reassurance or the warmth of Dimitri’s lips. He can’t stand the pitying looks from his generals, the way Hilda tries transparently to distract him or the way Lorenz fusses.

It’s a few days before they march when Marianne corners him in the hallway.

“Claude,” she says, her voice quiet as ever but with an edge that gives him pause.

“What can I do for you?” he asks, putting on a pleasant face.

“Have you…” She looks away, as if gathering herself, then back at his face. “Have you promised Dimitri something?”

Claude’s chest goes tight, mind spinning outside of his control. Had Marianne and Dimitri become close without his knowledge? She calls him by name, already more than most people are willing to do, and her question implies so much…

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he replies, hand on his cocked hip in a show of cheerful nonchalance.

“He talks as if he’s sworn fealty to you.” Her brows knit, she bites her lip. “Like… like you’re the only person he trusts. It’s not good for him.”

“Marianne —”

“I won’t see you hurt him,” she declares, eyes blazing despite her hushed tones. Claude feels _seen_ , pierced through. It frightens him into truthfulness.

“I don’t want to,” he finds himself whispering, “but we have to win the war.”

Marianne stares at him for a long moment, her eyes wet but her mouth set in a straight, determined line, before she walks away.

♚♙♟♔

“Mit’ka,” he murmurs, when the mad king’s lance finds its home. It tears with a sickening sound through bones and sinew and whatever else has consumed the Empress’ fragile body, echoing off the high ceiling of the throne room. “Mit’ka.”

_If you could have something for yourself, what would it be?_

Dimitri roars, whirls, unseeing, unthinking. Soldiers run, rear back, flee. His presence is larger than life, the dead woman at his feet proof that gods can be killed.

What _about_ after? Who is Dimitri in a world without a war, without an Empress to set him on a path? He is a man who exists in the space where death thrives and ghosts linger — who is Claude to let him reign?

Enbarr is a crumbling wreckage. There are battles left to win, and so Claude lets the arrow he’d nocked go slack and instead he descends to the stone floor. He puts a hand on the side of Dimitri’s neck, talks to him in low tones until he can tell his allies from his enemies.

 _We will claim victory_ , Claude tell him in a hushed whisper, their foreheads pressed together with Edelgard’s twisted body at their feet. _I promise._

**Author's Note:**

> find my fe3h twitter @lanceofscrewin and my main @mercutioes!


End file.
